Interesting facts about English writers. Interesting facts about Russian writers and poets

About famous writers you can find great amount information - how they lived, how they created their immortal works. And we want to bring to your attention interesting and not quite ordinary facts from life famous writers. Reading interesting book, the reader usually does not think about the peculiarities of the character and lifestyle of the writer who wrote it, but some facts of his biography or the history of the creation of a particular book are sometimes very entertaining and even cause a smile.

One day at Francois Rabelais there was no money to get from Lyon to Paris. Then he prepared three bags with the inscriptions “Poison for the King”, “Poison for the Queen” and “Poison for the Dauphin” and left them in a visible place in the hotel room. Upon learning of this, the hotel owner immediately reported to the authorities. Rabelais was captured and convoyed to the capital directly to King Francis I so that he could decide the writer’s fate. It turned out that the packages contained sugar, which Rabelais immediately drank with a glass of water, and then told the king, with whom they were friends, how he solved his problem.

Charles Dickens I drank half a liter of champagne every day. It all started with the fact that in 1858 Dickens, in order to raise his popularity by new level, decided to give lectures. His performances were extremely successful, and he traveled all over England and then went to America. And where there is a lecture, there is a subsequent meeting with readers! How can we live here without champagne? In addition, the writer Charles Dickens always slept with his head facing north. He also sat facing north when he wrote his great works.

Franz Kafka was the most humble person. He practically did not publish everything that he wrote, but he always read it aloud to his three Prague friends. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after his death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not fulfill this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.

Ilf and Petrov very in an original way avoided cliched thoughts. They discarded ideas that came to both of them at once.

Marie-François Arouet (Voltaire) simultaneously wrote several works. Sitting down at his desk, depending on his mood, he took the manuscript and continued to work on it.

Kir Bulychev- this is the final pseudonym of Vsevolod Mozheiko, but in general he changed them every month, especially when he worked in the magazine “Around the World”. He once signed himself "Sarah Fan" but was accused of anti-Semitism. We decided to simply put “S. Fan", but this was considered an attack against Korean people. Then Bulychev signed: “Ivan Shlagbaum.” Alexandre Dumas the father(1802-1870), whose green collection of works in fifteen volumes occupies bookshelves in many apartments, he did not write all these adventure novels himself. Worked for Dumas whole state « literary blacks“- at other times their number reached 70 people. More often than others, Dumas collaborated with the writer Auguste Macquet (1813-1888), who wrote, in particular, significant parts of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Montecristo. From the correspondence between Dumas and Macke it follows that the latter’s contribution to the beloved novels was very significant.

Main plot immortal work N.V. Gogol“The Inspector General” was suggested to the author by A. S. Pushkin. These great classics were good friends. Once Alexander Sergeevich told Nikolai Vasilyevich an interesting fact from the life of the city of Ustyuzhna, Novgorod province. It was this incident that formed the basis of the work of Nikolai Gogol. Throughout the time he was writing The Inspector General, Gogol often wrote to Pushkin about his work, told him what stage it was in, and also repeatedly announced that he wanted to quit it. However, Pushkin forbade him to do this, so “The Inspector General” was still completed. By the way, Pushkin, who was present at the first reading of the play, was completely delighted with it.

The stable phrase “lost generation” came to us from the works Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's lost generation are young people who found themselves at the front in early age(for Hemingway, primarily the period between the two world wars), often not yet graduated from school, undecided in life, but began to kill early. After returning from the war, such people, morally or physically crippled, often could not adapt to peaceful life, many committed suicide, some went crazy. " Lost generation"became also called literary movement, which united such famous writers, like Ham himself, James Joyce, Erich Maria Remarque, Henri Barbusse, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Darya Dontsova, whose father was Soviet writer Arkady Vasiliev, grew up surrounded by the creative intelligentsia. Once at school she was asked to write an essay on the topic: “What was Valentin Petrovich Kataev thinking about when he wrote the story “The Lonely Sail Whitens”?”, and Dontsova asked Kataev himself to help her. As a result, Daria received a bad grade, and the literature teacher wrote in her notebook: “Kataev was not thinking about this at all!”

Belarusian poet Adam Mickiewicz was also a science fiction writer. In the novel “The History of the Future,” he wrote about acoustic devices with the help of which, sitting by the fireplace, you can listen to concerts from the city, as well as about mechanisms that allow the inhabitants of the Earth to maintain contact with creatures inhabiting other planets.

Honore de Balzac I wrote in the dark, so even during the day I closed the curtains and lit candles. Starting to work on a new piece, Balzac locked himself in a room for one or two months and closed the shutters tightly so that no light could penetrate through them. He wrote by candlelight, dressed in a robe, for 18 hours every day.

U Lord Byron there were four pet geese that followed him everywhere, even at social gatherings. Despite being overweight and having a rather severe clubfoot, Byron was considered one of the most energetic and attractive people of his time.

To his close relatives he was Ronald, to his school friends he was John Ronald. At Oxford University, where he first studied and then taught, he was called “Tollers.” It's about O John Ronald Rowan Tolkien. By the way, in Denmark there is The Tolkien Ensemble - an ensemble named after Tolkien. This is Danish Symphony Orchestra, performing musical pieces based on the works of Tolkien. He has the support of Queen Margaret II, a great fan of Tolkien's books, who herself illustrates his books.

Frankenstein- this is not the name of the famous monster at all. In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus“, which first saw the light in 1818, this very monster was simply called “Monster”. Victor Frankenstein was the name of a young student scientist from Geneva who created Living being from nonliving material.

Mark Twain was a good inventor. Among his developments are a notebook with tear-off leaves for journalists, a wardrobe with sliding shelves, and also the most ingenious of his inventions - a tie-tying machine!

Real name Daniel Defoe, was not de Fo, indicating noble origin, but simply Fo. By the way, he wrote not just one book, but more than 300. Moreover, among his works there are a lot scientific works on history, economics, geography, as well as a series of books on demonology and magic. He even wrote a book about the history of the reign of Peter I. One of the most prolific writers of all times and peoples there was a Spaniard Lope de Vega. In addition to “Dog in the Manger,” he wrote another 1,800 plays, all of them in verse. He never worked on a single play for more than 3 days. At the same time, his work was well paid, so Lope de Vega was practically a multimillionaire, which is extremely rare among writers.

The life and work of the world's literary luminaries is rich in all sorts of interesting things. For example, Russian poets and writers came up with many new words: substance, thermometer (Lomonosov), industry (Karamzin), bungling (Saltykov-Shchedrin), fade away (Dostoevsky), mediocrity (Severyanin), exhausted (Khlebnikov). In our library you can plunge into the fascinating world of masterpieces of world literature, as well as increase your erudition by becoming familiar with a lot of new information. We are waiting for you in our library!

If only you knew what kind of rubbish... Very true words! Poems, stories and novels really sometimes grow out of such rubbish that people who are far from creative efforts even become scared. Gather unusual facts about writers is like picking mushrooms in the blind rainy season. Rip - I don’t want to! As a matter of fact, all the facts about writers in general are unusual, if not extraordinary. Judge for yourself.

001 William Shakespeare born and died on the same day (but, fortunately, on different years) - On April 23, 1564, he was born and 52 years later he died on the same day.

002 On the same day with Shakespeare another one died great writer — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The author of Don Quixote died on April 23, 1616.

003 Contemporaries claimed that Shakespeare was fond of poaching - he hunted deer in the domain of Sir Thomas Lucy, without any permission from this very Lucy.

004 Great poet Byron he was lame, prone to being overweight and extremely loving - in a year in Venice, according to some reports, he made 250 ladies happy with himself, lame and fat.

005 U Byron there was an amazing personal collection - strands of hair cut from the pubes of beloved women. The locks (or perhaps curls) were kept in envelopes on which the names of the hostesses were romantically inscribed. Some researchers argue that it was possible to admire (if this word is appropriate here) the poet’s collection back in the 1980s, after which traces of vegetation were lost.

006 And also great poet Byron loved spending time with boys, including, alas, minors. We don’t even comment on this! 250 ladies wasn’t enough for the scoundrel!

007 Well, a little more about Byron- He loved animals very much. Fortunately, not in the sense that you may have put into this phrase after reading about Byron a little higher. The romantic poet adored animals platonically and even kept a menagerie in which a badger, monkeys, horses, a parrot, a crocodile and many other animals lived.

008 U Charles Dickens I had a very difficult childhood. When his dad went to debtor's prison, little Charlie was sent to work... no, not in a chocolate factory, but in a blacking factory, where he stuck labels on jars from morning to evening. Not dusty, you say? But stick them from morning to evening instead of playing football with the boys, and you will understand why Dickens’ images of unfortunate orphans were so convincing.

009 In 1857 to Dickens came to visit Hans Christian Andersen. This is not a Kharms joke, this is life itself! Andersen and Dickens met back in 1847, were completely delighted with each other, and now, 10 years later, the Dane decided to take advantage of the invitation given to him. The trouble is that over the years in Dickens’s life everything has changed a lot and become more complicated - he was not ready to accept Andersen, and he lived with him for almost five weeks! “He doesn’t speak any languages ​​except his Danish, although there are suspicions that he doesn’t know that either,” Dickens told his friends about his guest in this way. Poor Andersen became the target of ridicule from the numerous descendants of the author of Little Dorrit, and when he left, Dad Dickens left a note in his room: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks, which seemed like years to our family.” And you also ask why Andersen wrote such sad fairy tales?

010 And also Dickens was fond of hypnosis, or, as they said then, mesmerism.

011 One of my favorite entertainments Dickens there were trips to the Paris morgue, where unidentified bodies were exhibited. Truly a dear person!

012 Oscar Wilde did not take Dickens's writings seriously and mocked them for any reason. In general, modern Charles Dickens critics endlessly hinted that he would never make the list of the best British writers. And we’ll get to Oscar Wilde later.

013 But Dickens ordinary readers were devotedly loved - in 1841, in the port of New York, where the continuation of the final chapters of “The Antiquities Shop” was supposed to be brought, 6 thousand people gathered, and everyone shouted to the passengers of the docking ship: “Will little Nell die?”

014 Dickens could not work if the tables and chairs in his office were not arranged as they should be. Only he knew how to do it - and each time he began work by rearranging the furniture.

015 Charles Dickens He disliked monuments so much that in his will he strictly forbade him from erecting them. The only bronze statue of Dickens is in Philadelphia. By the way, the statue was initially rejected by the writer’s family.

016 American writer O.Henry began writing career in prison, where he ended up for embezzlement. And things went so well for him that everyone soon forgot about prison.

017 Ernest Hemingway He was not only an alcoholic and a suicide, as everyone knows. He also had peiraphobia (fear public speaking), in addition, he never believed the praises of even his most sincere readers and admirers. I didn’t even believe my friends, and that’s all!

018 Hemingway survived five wars, four automobile and two air crashes. As a child, his mother also forced him to attend dance school. And over time he himself began to call himself Pope.

019 Same Hemingway often and willingly talked about the fact that the FBI was watching him. The interlocutors smiled wryly, but in the end it turned out that the Pope was right - declassified documents confirmed that this was indeed surveillance, and not paranoia.

020 First in history to use the word “gay” in literature Gertrude Stein- a lesbian writer who hated punctuation and gave the world the definition of “the lost generation.”

021 Oscar Wilde- as well as Ernest Hemingway— as a child, I spent a long time dressing up in girls’ dresses. In both cases, we note, it ended badly.

023 Honore de Balzac I loved coffee - I drank about 50 cups of strong Turkish coffee a day. If it was not possible to make coffee, the writer simply ground a handful of beans and chewed them with great pleasure.

024 Balzac believed that ejaculation is a waste of creative energy, since semen is a brain substance. Once, talking with a friend after a successful conversation, the writer exclaimed bitterly: “This morning I lost my novel!”

025 Edgar Alan Poe I've been afraid of the dark all my life. Perhaps one of the reasons for this fear was that in childhood future writer studied... in the cemetery. The school where the boy went was so poor that it was impossible to buy textbooks for the children. A resourceful math teacher taught classes in a nearby cemetery, among the graves. Each student chose tombstone and calculated how many years the deceased had lived by subtracting the date of birth from the date of death. It is not surprising that Poe grew up to become what he became - the founder of world horror literature.

026 Most psychedelic writer of all times and peoples should be recognized Lewis Carroll, the shy British mathematician who wrote the Alice stories. His writings were inspired by the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Tim Burton and others.

027 Real name Lewis Carroll- Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He had the church rank of deacon, and also in personal diaries Carroll constantly repented of some sin. However, these pages were destroyed by the writer’s family so as not to discredit his image. Some researchers seriously believe that Carroll was Jack the Ripper, who, as we know, was never found.

028 Carroll suffered from swamp fever, cystitis, lumbago, eczema, furunculosis, arthritis, pleurisy, rheumatism, insomnia and a whole bunch of different diseases. In addition, he had an almost constant - and very severe - headache.

029 The author of “Alice” was a passionate fan technical progress, and he himself personally invented a tricycle, a mnemonic system for remembering names and dates, an electric pen, and it was he who came up with the idea of ​​​​writing the title of a book on the spine and created the prototype of everyone’s favorite game Scrabble.

030 Franz Kafka was the grandson of a kosher butcher and a strict vegetarian.

031 Great American Poet Walt Whitman adhered to a very specific sexual orientation. He admired, however, first of all Abraham Lincoln, whom he praised in the poem “Oh, captain!” My captain!". And once Whitman met another gay icon - the sarcastic Irishman Oscar Wilde, who so disliked Charles Dickens (who, in turn, did not like Andersen, see above). Wilde told Whitman that he adored Leaves of Grass, which his mother often read to him as a child, after which Whitman kissed the “excellent, large and handsome young man” right on the lips. “I can still feel Whitman’s kiss on my lips,” the author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” shared with his friends. Brr!

032 Mark Twain - literary pseudonym a man named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. In addition, Twain also had the pseudonyms Tramp, Josh, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Sergeant Fathom and W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. By the way, “Mark Twain”, a concept from the field of navigation, means “measure two” fathoms: this is how the minimum depth suitable for navigation was noted.

033 Mark Twain was friends with one of the most mysterious people of his time - the inventor Nikola Tesla. The writer himself patented several inventions, such as self-adjusting suspenders and a scrapbook with adhesive pages.

034 And also Twain he adored cats and hated children (he even wanted to erect a monument to King Herod). Once a great writer said: “If it were possible to cross a person with a cat, the human race would only benefit from this, but the cat breed would clearly worsen.”

035 Twain was a heavy smoker (he is the author of the phrase, which is now attributed to everyone: “There is nothing easier than quitting smoking. I know, I’ve done it a thousand times”). He started smoking when he was eight years old and smoked 20 to 40 cigars daily until his death. The writer chose the smelliest and cheapest cigars.

036 Author of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy J.R.R. Tolkien he was an extremely bad driver, snored so much that he had to spend the night in the bathroom so as not to disturb his wife’s sleep, and was also a terrible Francophobe - he hated the French since William the Conqueror.

037 First wedding night with Sophia Bers 34 year old Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy forced his 18-year-old newly married wife to read those pages in his diary, which described in detail the amorous adventures of the writer with different women, among others - with serf peasant women. Tolstoy wanted there to be no secrets between him and his wife.

038 Agatha Christie She suffered from dysgraphia, meaning she could practically not write by hand. All of her famous novels were dictated.

039 Chekhov was a big fan of walking in brothel- And? When I found myself in a foreign city, the first thing I did was study it from this side.

040 James Joyce More than anything else, he was afraid of dogs and thunderstorms, hated monuments and was a masochist.

041 When Tolstoy left home in old age most of reporters rushed after him, and only one, the most quick-witted Zhurka came to Yasnaya Polyana- find out how Sofia Andreevna is doing. Soon the editor received a telegram: “The Countess is running across the pond with a changed face.” This is how the reporter described Sofia Andreevna’s intention to drown herself. Subsequently, the phrase was picked up by two completely different writers - Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, presenting it to their brilliant hero Ostap Bender.

042 William Faulkner He worked as a postman for several years until it turned out that he often threw undelivered letters into the trash bin.

043 Jack London was a socialist, and in addition - the first in history American writer who earned a million dollars with his work.

044 Arthur Conan Doyle, who invented Sherlock Holmes, was an occultist and believed in the existence of small winged fairies.

045 Jean-Paul Sartre experimented with mind-expanding substances and supported terrorists in every possible way. Perhaps the first was somehow connected with the second.

The image of Russia on the scale of world literature is unthinkable without these names. And on the shelves of any more or less decent book lover, the books of these Russian writers are displayed in plain sight out of pride.

But what do we know about our favorite writers, whose books are considered mandatory reading at any conscious age? To modern man It’s not enough to read the author’s book; please give him another book about the author.

In continuation of the article about two great Russian classics — L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, I’m posting another one no less interesting selection interesting facts about Russian writers:

A. S. Pushkin

- I smoked a lot.

He shocked the ladies of Ekaterinoslav with translucent pantaloons without underwear.

He was the father of four legitimate children and at least one illegitimate one.

Was sure he would die from white man or a white horse.

He chose the place for his grave himself.

I studied poorly at the Lyceum.

He ordered a mass for the repose of the soul of God's servant George, that is, Byron.

Gave my friend Delvig a skull.

I lost a lot at cards, but always found means to cover my gambling debt.

Dantes was a relative of Pushkin. At the time of the duel he was married to sister Pushkin's wife - Ekaterina Goncharova.

Before his death, Pushkin asked for forgiveness for violating the tsar’s ban on dueling: “... I’m waiting for the tsar’s word so that I can die in peace...”.

M. Yu. Lermontov

- He was short, broad-shouldered, stocky, big-headed and limped like Lord Byron.

More than anyone in the world, he loved his grandmother, and she loved him.

He took part in a duel with a Frenchman who provided pistols for the duel between Pushkin and Dantes.

He considered himself a descendant of the Scotsman Learmont.

He stole a friend’s bride, and then wrote an anonymous slander against himself to get rid of the annoying girl.

Showed courage in battles in the Caucasus.

I studied Azerbaijani language.

Was keenly interested various kinds predictions, fortune telling and symbols.

He was sarcastic, impudent, merciless to the weaknesses of others, vindictive and arrogant.

In his short 26-year life, Lermontov participated in three duels, and four more were avoided thanks to the common sense of those around him.

For fun, he loved to upset upcoming marriages, pretending to be in love with someone else's bride, and showered her with flowers, poems and other signs of attention. Sometimes he threatened, promising to commit suicide if his “love” married someone else. And then he admitted to the prank...

He managed to lose in all games and competitions, only the fall of the Frenchman Barant in a decisive attack was able to save the wounded Lermontov in the first duel. During his return from Caucasian exile, the poet decided to tell fortunes and tossed fifty kopecks - where should he go: to work or should he take another walk, stopping briefly in Pyatigorsk. And he had the chance to go to Pyatigorsk. There (July 15, 1841), near Mount Mashuk, he was killed in a duel by a retired cavalryman Martynov, who, as it turns out, was an amateur shooter. It turned out that before this duel he only fired a pistol three times...

A. P. Chekhov

- Worked in his father's shop.

Brought from the island of Ceylon a tame mongoose named Bastard.

In the gymnasium, for the sake of shockingness, he wore provocative-colored trousers under his uniform.

As a child, he dressed up as a beggar, put on make-up and received alms from his own uncle.

He gave the policeman a salted watermelon wrapped in paper, saying that it was a bomb.

Received a fee for furniture from the editorial office of the magazine "Alarm Clock".

He studied tailoring at the district school. At the request of his dapper brother Nikolai, he sewed gray gymnasium trousers, so tight that they were nicknamed macaroni.

He sang church hymns at home. As for his voice, Anton Pavlovich spoke in a loud bass voice.

An army of female fans followed him everywhere. When Chekhov moved to Yalta in 1898, many of his fans followed him to Crimea. As newspapers wrote, ladies literally rushed after the writer along the embankments, just to see their idol more often, “studying his costume, gait, and trying to somehow attract his attention.” For such devotion, the local gossip column aptly dubbed the girls “Antonovkas.”

One of the three most filmed authors in the world. More than 287 film adaptations.

At first glance he saw a suicide in a stranger.

Chekhov had about fifty pseudonyms. Well, you definitely know one of them from your school days - Antosha Chekhonte, of course. There were also: Schiller Shakespeareovich Goethe, Champagne, My Brother's Brother; Nut No. 6; Nut No. 9; Rook; A person without a spleen; Akaki Tarantulov, Someone, Arkhip Indeikin

Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, and the writer himself refused hereditary nobility. Yegor Mikhailovich Chekhov was able to buy himself and his family freedom. Subsequently, his famous grandson never forgot about his origin. Moreover, in 1899, when Emperor Nicholas II, by his decree, awarded the writer the title of hereditary nobleman and the Order of St. Stanislaus of the third degree, Anton Pavlovich simply ... did not accept this privilege. The highest decree remained without attention and consequences - as well as the title of honorary academician Russian Academy sciences, which Chekhov also considered useless for himself.

To be continued…

Based on materials from the magazine

• Because Mayakovsky wrote his poems using a ladder, fellow poets accused him of fraud, because at that time payments for poems were made based on the number of lines. Because of this arrangement, Mayakovsky’s poems were paid 2-3 times more.
• Oddly enough, Cuban Julian del Casal, who was the author of endlessly pessimistic poems, died of laughter. At a friendly dinner, a joke told by one of the guests caused him to burst into uncontrollable laughter. Unfortunately, this caused aortic dissection, bleeding and death.
• Russian writers and poets invented many words that have taken root in circulation: Lomonosov invented substance, Karamzin - industry, Saltykov-Shchedrin - bungling, Dostoevsky - disappear, Severyanin - mediocrity, Khlebnikov - pilot and exhausted.
• In China, under Emperor Qianlong, poets who wrote sad poems were executed.
• The poet Vostokov invented female name Svetlana, he first used it in the novel “Svetlana and Mstislav”. This name gained popularity after the publication of Zhukovsky’s ballad “Svetlana” in 1813.

• Pushkin owns at least 70 epigraphs, Gogol and Turgenev – more than 20.
• Sometimes Pushkin wrote poems to order, for example, poems in honor of the Prince of Orange or the ode “On the return of the Emperor from Paris.”
• In Ecuador there is a statue of local poet José Olmedo. However, not everyone knows that due to a tight budget, the Ecuadorian government decided to purchase a used sculpture of the poet Byron.
• At Lord Byron's homestead there lived four geese who loved to accompany him on his walks. They even went with him to public meetings.
• Byron was one of the attractive and energetic people of that time; this was not hindered by severe club feet and excess weight.
• The 18th century Russian poet and diplomat Khariton Mackentin wrote under the pseudonym Antioch Cantemir, which was an anagram of his name.
• There are no longer any living descendants of William Shakespeare left on Earth.
• Shakespeare came up with a few different ways pronouncing your own name.
• The line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, “Everything is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark,” has been translated in different ways. Somewhere it sounded like “I foresee disasters for the fatherland,” or “You know, something evil happened here.”

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We recently published. Today we bring to your attention a continuation of everything that will be useful to know for a true book lover. As always, happy reading!

1. One of the most extraordinary books is “ The Divine Comedy"Dante, created by G. Celani on one sheet of paper measuring 800x600 mm. It contained 14 thousand poems, and you can read them without special magnifying equipment. If you look at the book from a distance, you get a map of Italy. Monk Gabriel spent 4 years creating it.

2. The poet Oppian received the largest fee of the Roman Empire. Marcus Aurelius paid him a gold coin for each line of the poem. For his work he received 20 thousand gold coins.

3. To make books as cheap as cigarettes, Penguin began using paperbacks. The first such books were distributed in churches.

4. A bibliocleptomaniac is a person who steals books. Stephen Bloomberg, the most famous book thief, stole more than 23 thousand rare copies of books. Now his collection is worth about $20 million.

5. B medieval Europe To prevent it from being taken out of the public library, the book was chained to the shelf. Their length made it possible to remove books from shelves and read them, but not to take them with them. This method of protection against theft was used until the 18th century, since books were very expensive at that time.

6. According to Google estimates, there are almost 130 million book titles in the world (this includes all artistic, journalistic and scientific works).

7. A book by the famous Dutch doctor Herman Boerhaave entitled “The Only and Deepest Secrets of the Medical Art” was sold for 10 thousand dollars. When the seal on it was opened, it turned out that its pages were blank. Only title page read: “Keep your head cold, your feet warm, and you will make the best doctor poor.”

8. The well-known and familiar “bookworm” appeared thanks to small insects that eat the spines of books.

9. In Shakespeare’s works, the word “love” appears almost 10 times more often than the word “hate” (2259 and 229 times, respectively).

10. Leonardo da Vinci's work on water, earth and celestial bodies called the Leicester Code is considered one of the most expensive books in the world. To become its owner, Bill Gates spent more than $30 million. The book itself should only be read with a mirror, as it is written in mirror handwriting.

Which facts did you like best? Do you know anything else interesting about books? We are waiting for your answers in the comments!